Just curious if anyone has any idea or suggestions on a project I'm doing - I am putting together large books. The way I do it now is I receieve content from various people in PDF form - I then assemble one LARGE PDF and add filler to hit a signature of 4. I then also have to go in to make sure each section is starting on an odd numbered page so it shows up on the right hand side. There has to be a better way! I could save costs at the printer if I can increase the signature. and it just seems silly not to use InDesign to do a layout project. any tips, tricks, ideas, ... blessing to keep doing it the way I am? Haha.Thank you.

The pages I get are generated in a bar code UBS system and given to me as a PDF, I'm not familair with the UBS system. I don't know if maybe I could have it given to me as a different file type that would help? I still get caught up on the print signature, inserting ads from suppliers ( in PDF form), and making sure each section starts on an odd page. Just seems super clunky and with way more steps than need be.

ok cool! I get more pieces/sections that go in also as PDFs like ads that are created elsewhere as well as some ads that are created here. all as PDFs. Then the only thing is - as the process is now - I would add in page numbers but in acrobat. The books are eventually sent off to the printer.

I'm not clear on the whole process you use, but there's no reason I can see not to build the doc in ID (add a page number marker on the master page) and place the content into ID pages, but it isn't clear to me if all of these PDFs you get are the same size or if you use more than one per page, so that would affect my advice.

totally understand - sorry to be so vauge. I appreciate your help! The process is kind of nutty and hard to explain - I get PDFs in from all over that are checked for size and other various print issues given to me that I assemeble into large PDFs - usually about 500+ pages. Within the 500+ pages there are different sections - each section has to end up being a signature of 4. I also have to go in and insert ads that have to be near their listing in the barcodes. I do it all in acrobat right now and wanted to know if there was a way to have indesign set up signatures of (at least 4) - I guess a dream senario would be I have a some file that I can flow into Indesign. Indesign would place it into signatures of at least 4 (or 8 or 12 or 16). I just don't know if InDesign would be able to make the whole process easier or if it would be just as much work as laying it all out in acrobat. Or what options are out there that I could try to maybe tweak the files before they are PDS so that everythign can be placed in Indesign to make sure there are no funky page size errors, color errors or anything that would delay printing. Also having Indeisgn assit with the page signatures would be helpful jsut in case i go cross eyes and don't notice one section not being correct. Thank you for help on my crazy question!

There are scripts for ID that can place multiple page PDFs, but they wouldn't help a lot for a bunch of single-page files. ID might be easier to work with, though, for visualization (not quite sure what you are doing in Acrobat now). Yha pages panel can show you your spreads which makes it a little easier to count, and you can set up sections (each section start has a little marker in the pages panel, too) which might ba another useful clue, but I don't see much potential for auto-creation of section signatures.

This seems complex enough, though, that it might be worthwhile for you to hire a local InDesign expert to come in for a few hours, look over what you are doing, and make some workflow suggestions.